0.9 Chapter seven: retrenchment and the struggle for survival, 19  (Page 10/20)

Implementing the report’s recommendations: securing government support

Initial reaction to the committee's report was quite positive. The committee pre­sented its findings to the public in a series of meetings for government officials, for the press, and for the neighborhood, all held on March 11, 1993. Many promi­nent state and city officials attended the government meeting, including New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, State Senator Roy Goodman, State Repre­sentative Franz Leichter, retired State Senator Tarky Lombardi, Manhattan Bor­ough President Ruth Messinger, Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Luis Cancel, and City Council member Ronnie Eldridge. Each and every pub­lic sector representative emphatically supported both the components of the plan and the concept of keeping the N-YHS as an independent entity with its com­bination of library and museum collections. Mayor Dinkins issued a statement endorsing "the newly defined mission statement of the Society" and pledged to have Deputy Mayor Barbara Fife and Cancel review the committee's recom­mendations and "define ways in which the public sector can assist the Society to fulfill its newly defined role." Roy Goodman offered "his unreserved pledge to work forthwith to make this plan work." He further expressed his belief that the government sector ought to come up with all of the money recommended in the plan.

Still, although each of the public officials offered general support for the plan, some concerns were also expressed. Senator Goodman, for example, voiced apprehension about the viability of real estate development. Another official ques­tioned the ability of the Society to realize returns on the real estate within the one-year time frame given in the report. New York City's cultural affairs commissioner, Luis Cancel, worried whether the Society's deaccessioning plan was appropriate and whether it would set a bad precedent for the museum community. Regarding that topic, Attorney General Abrams issued a statement expressing his view that "any deaccessioning of objects from the collection be pursued only as a last resort, and only on a prudent, limited basis, consistent with the mission of the Society." He also committed to monitoring "this vital task to assure that the pub­lic interest is protected."

Those concerns notwithstanding, press reaction to the committee's plan was strongly positive, helping to generate pressure on public officials to act on the Society's behalf. An article in the New York Times detailed the implications of the committee's proposals and probed the difficult issues. The article discussed the controversial nature of the Society's deaccessioning plan and accepted the committee's argument that the narrowing of the mission justified it. It congratu­lated the committee for its sensitivity to the concerns of museum professionals regarding deaccessioning and for the steps outlined to ensure that the collections remain in the public domain. The article's most glowing praise was reserved for what it referred to as the "interconnectedness of the plan": "No one aspect of reorganization is to be undertaken until all others are in place. . . . Only when financial commitments from the city and state, and from what will almost certainly be a newly reconstituted board, are assured, and when a scheme for developing the real estate has been drawn up that meets with general approval, will the sale of works go forward. . . . What the advisory committee has devised, deftly and in short order, is clearly the best hope at this point for revitalizing one of the city's oldest and most troubled cultural institutions."